Funding given to East Ayrshire Council for Additional Support Needs (ASN): FOI release

Information requested

How much funding East Ayrshire Council has received from the Scottish Government to fund Additional Support Needs (ASN) within the area.

Response

The Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on additional support, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The needs based distribution used to distribute the overall quantum of funding available to local authorities is available in the Scottish Local Government Finance ‘Green Book’ for Grant Aided Expenditure and other allocations 2024-25. Details on local authority Education distributions, including distribution for Special Education can be found in pages 17-26 of the document linked below.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-local-government-finance-green-book-2024-25/documents/

The ‘Green Book’ for 2025-26 was published on 27 February, Education distributions are included in pages 17-27 of the document linked below.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-local-government-finance-green-book-2025-26/

However, as independent corporate bodies, it is for the local authorities to decide how to allocate their resources and it is for locally elected representatives to make those decisions.

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the link listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.